On the tee with Verle

April 14, 2008|By VERLE FRITZ, Daily American Correspondent

Now that the 2008 major league baseball season is in full swing, it got me to thinking about one of the greatest players in Red Sox history, baseball legend Ted Williams. The Red Sox won the 2007 World Series and David Ortiz was the Red Sox batting star. However in Boston’s rich history, few individuals made a more indelible mark than Ted Williams, who arrived in 1939 as a gangly kid full of enthusiasm and promise and achieved unparalleled glories on the baseball diamond.

By the time he ended his career, Williams had twice won baseball’s Triple Crown for leading the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in (1942 and 1947), twice been named the American League’s Most Valuable Player (1946 and 1949), and six times had won the AL batting title, including 1957, when he hit .388 at the age of 39, and 1958 when he hit .328 at age 40.

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Williams died July 5, 2002 at the age of 83. Also dying in the summer of that year was golfing legend Sam Snead at the age of 89.

Snead was one of golf’s greatest players with seven major championships, a record 81 victories on the PGA Tour and an ageless game that produced tournament victories in six decades.

Slammin’ Sam, as he was called, won the Greater Greensboro Open a record eight times, the first in 1938 and the eighth one in 1965 when he was 52, the oldest man to ever win on the PGA Tour. Seventeen of his triumphs came after turning 40. Snead tied for third in the 1974 PGA Championship at age 62, finishing just three strokes behind the winner, Lee Trevino.

In perhaps his most impressive feat, Snead became the first player on the PGA Tour to shoot his age — a 67 at age 67 — during the second round of the Quad Cities Open in 1979. Two days later, Snead shot a 66.

Snead was famous for his straw hat, cocky grin and homespun humor.

With the final round of the 2008 Masters being played today, it is important to note that Snead was a three-time Masters champion.

Arnold Palmer was an honorary starter at this year’s Masters and Snead was an honorary starter at the Masters beginning in 1983. Snead would jaunt to the first tee to show off that flowing, flawless swing, and then tell stories outside the clubhouse.

One of those stories that I enjoyed was a discussion between Ted Williams and Snead about which game was harder to play. Williams took the lead, pointing out that in golf the ball, although small, isn’t moving and you hit it off a flat surface. In baseball, Williams said, “I gotta stand up there with a round bat and hit a ball that’s traveling at me at around a hundred miles an hour, and curving.”

Snead considered that for a moment, then responded: “Yeah, Ted, but you don’t have to go up in the stands and play your foul balls. Golfers do.”